Breast milk can be frozen up to many months before it is used. Breast milk can be stored in milk bags. FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary milk bag 100. A milk bag 100 is similar to a Ziploc® bag, in which it has a fastener 105 to close the milk bag 100 and to separate a tag 110 from the storage or bag area 115. Milk is contained in the storage area 115. Typically, the tag 110 allows for information to be written onto, such as name, date and amount of milk is in the milk bag.
In FIG. 1, the milk bag 100 has dimensions A and B as shown. Typically, the width of the milk bag 100 at the bottom is bigger than the width of the milk bag 100 at the top, so that the milk bag 100 can be positioned vertically in the freezer. One problem with positioning the milk bag 100 vertically is that it takes up too much room in the freezer or has a tendency to fall over. As such, to save space in the freezer, the milk bag 100 can be positioned horizontally. By positioning the milk bag 100 horizontally, the milk bag 100 can therefore be stacked on top of and/or below other milk bags. However, a problem with stacked milk bags is that they can become “stuck” because of frost. Another problem with stacked milk bags is that the top milk bag may slide off a bottom one; the frozen milk bag would have a deformed or awkward shape because of the way the milk bag slid off and landed prior to it being frozen. In addition, a frozen milk bag can have a shape that is off because of grates or other objects in the freezer. As parents, guardians, and caregivers know, frozen milk bags must be handled with care because the edges are delicate and can rupture if not handled with care; when defrosting the milk, the milk will become wasted as it will drip out of the punctured bag. Another problem with stacked milk bags is that it is difficult to retrieve a milk bag with the earliest date since it would be at a bottom of the stack and/or towards the back of the freezer. The desire is to use old milk first to avoid wasting such precious food since it has a suggested expiratory lifetime.
The present invention addresses these limitations in the prior art.